boardboy said...maybe its becuase even the governing bodies in the sport portray an old fashioned image.
E.g.
www.seabreeze.com.au/forums/Windsurfing/General/End-of-Season-Blowout/Why wouldnt you use new/current imagery? This is the image that people still have of the sport and we seem to keep reinforcing it.
We should be proatcively pushing the new, excciting, extreme sport angle of windsurfing imo.
And how big are extreme sports? Look at the facts, they are generally tiny compared to traditional sports like footy.
The sport started to promote the extreme high performance side (as it was then, loops etc) just at the time it started to drop from having 26 shops in Sydney.
Kids are not stupid - they know that they will not be able to get on a board and do that sort of stuff, therefore they don't get attracted to windsurfing. Instead they do more accessible sports for which they don't need vastly expensive gear, years of training and very rare conditions.
Kids are still sailing the traditional dinghy classes (Sabots, Optis, Flying 11s) in fleets that would make "high performance" windsurfing wet its pants in envy. They want to have fun, they don't want to get skunked, trashed and sit around waiting for wind.
We know that if one or two people get interested and show kids that the sport can be cheap, accessible and pretty easy then you will get 10-15 kids into it very quickly. Half of them will buy a full set of cheap new gear. Some of them will go onto sailing at world level.
It's EASY to get kids into it - all it takes is time and the right approach - an approach that centres on fun and accessibility rather than pretending that normal kids from east-coast cities will be able to do what a small number of kids from Hawaii can do. And, unfortunately, JUST AS IN EVERY SPORT you will have a high drop-out rate and therefore you need to be there every season, bringing in a fresh batch to keep up the critical mass.
Unfortunately, there are only a small number of us who have actually done this. Some of the kids we taught are now doing waves, some are chasing Olympic selection, some are doing the worlds. But most people are just sitting around, criticising those who actually do the work and their approach.
If those who had never done it stopped saying how it should be done, and did their share of helping, then there would be no lack of kids in windsurfing. Even if it was as "small" as (to use one example) the Flying 11 dinghy class in NSW, there would be about 300+ active windsurfing kids most weekend in the state. But people keep on saying that's the wrong model and therefore we get very few kids apart from those coming from clubs (and they are getting tired of hearing from "experts" who seem to never had done it).
BTW we did some retro shirts for a regatta this year. The first person to see them said "retro, cool!" He was 16 and had come interstate to go windsurfing........
PS - notice how this is the third post in a row saying "it can be done" from practical experience, and all three posts are from people who have had success in getting kids into it by avoiding the "high-performance" end of the sport?
Those who are using a "low performance" approach are getting kids into the sport, those who are using a "high performance" approach are wondering what is going wrong....it's no coincidence! Big waves, big winds and small gear are fantastic, but (just as in most sports) the extreme end scares lots of people off!
That's how my generation is 
), my 3rd mate is nearly finished with it, he had a go at a more modern board and is looking into getting a 2nd hand kit. If more peeps would do the same I think it would be a plus for our sport, do not send the old kits to their death. When I'll have it back I will put it here for a grom that is keen to start.
